Our Greatest Fears

Fourteen years ago, the Lord blessed my husband and me with a home that had enough space for us to really use it to be a blessing to others. We prayed about how God wanted us to use this blessing. We were able to purchase the home for a very low price, and so we promised God that we would use it for His glory. When we prayed, we felt like God wanted us to set it up so that we could always welcome people who needed a place to live. We decorated each room to welcome people who needed housing. As soon as it was ready, God brought the people.

Many times, they were people who did not look like us but had gone into ministry and needed somewhere to live at a lower cost. Sometimes it was someone who had lost their job and needed a place to stay while they got back on their feet. We never really thought about the race of the people God sent to us. If they needed somewhere to stay and we had the space, we welcomed them. But other people noticed. During those years, we would hear comments like, “They keep letting all those White people stay with them.” It was interesting to me that something we saw simply as Christian hospitality could be viewed through the lens of race. Why did it matter that White people were staying in our home? Why was crossing that racial boundary noticeable enough that people felt the need to comment on it? Our kids grew up in community with people from all types of ethnic backgrounds. To them, this was simply normal. But I began to realize that in our society, it isn’t normal.

The color line is more than a line. It is a brick wall that neither side wants to cross. The years of racism and segregation, and even CHURCH segregation, have caused us to feel like crossing over into Samaria is some type of break in decorum or societal protocol. I have even had people tell me, “Come out from among them and be separate.” There is nothing in the Bible that commands that we separate ourselves based on ethnicity or color. I feel like sometimes separation is a necessary response when we feel unsafe and need a community to help us feel at home in this world, but as Christians, we should be striving to cross the lines that divide us, because Jesus did. He is our example.

For Black people, our greatest fear of crossing those lines is being hurt. I know this too well. Every single time God has led me to cross those boundaries, I have been hurt. There are unconscious racial biases and blind spots in many White people that can cause them to be dismissive, question our intelligence, ignore us, or berate us, often without cause. These attitudes can rise up in people who have not done the authentic work of rooting out the racism and White supremacy passed down through generations so that they can truly treat all people as if they were made in the image of God. If they are not helping us, saving us, or serving us in some way, then seeing Black people as truly equal to them in every aspect can sometimes be a challenge.

Then there is the fear of physical hurt. Many of us have experienced physical danger from White people in some form or fashion, or the threat of it. Again, hatred that was passed down from previous generations may not have been fully rooted out of people’s hearts and minds. Many White people have done this work. Their parents or grandparents may have stopped the racism and White supremacy that had been passed from generation to generation. Racism has affected all of us, and we cannot deny how that lens affects how we see the world and one another. Just like my parents had to teach me about forgiveness while still teaching me to be proud of my heritage and how to recognize racism when it happens, anyone born in this country has to be trained to shed the grave clothes of White supremacy and racism.

One of the reasons why it is so hard to heal is that when Black people share our stories, we are often not believed. When Doug Wilson wrote about slavery back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he argued that many of the stories we have been told about the abuses of slavery were exaggerated or distorted. But how can the oppressor tell the abused what their human experience was? This is traditionally how White people have responded to our testimonies of racism. For example, even though people enslaved by Robert E. Lee gave testimony about abuse, their testimonies have often been discounted while his denial has been given greater credibility. When Harriet Jacobs shared the story of her abuse with Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stowe reached out to another White woman to determine whether Jacobs’s story should be believed.

When White people only see the narrative as, “We brought you out of poor, pagan Africa to save you,” then it becomes difficult to hear the cries of my enslaved great-grandfather, who said, “I used to hide behind the barn and just cry out to God to save me.” When I tell the story of how my brother, who was between seven and nine years old, was outside playing in the snow with his friend when two White men got out of their car and chased my brother and his friend through the neighborhood, some White people may immediately think, “They must have done something to deserve it.” The boys ran until they could hide in some bushes. They waited until the men ran past them, and then they ran home. If I told you that my brother had thrown a snowball at their car, would you then think it was justifiable for two grown men to chase two little boys through a neighborhood so fiercely that those children feared for their lives? It reminds me of hearing people say that Tamir Rice should not have been playing outside with a toy gun, and then he would not have gotten shot.

Our greatest fear is more pain: physical, emotional, mental, even spiritual. So we stay behind the color line because it feels safer. We keep our children behind the color line because it feels safer. We also stay there because we are so frustrated that we are still fighting these battles that sometimes we just do not want anything to do with the source of our pain. And there is another fear. We fear falling into some type of “Uncle Tom” relationship where we simply try to get along to keep the peace, all the while denying our very real pain.

I think one of the greatest fears among White people is being erased. I have even seen this fear expressed around interracial marriage and demographic change, the idea that as more people marry across racial lines, Whiteness itself could eventually disappear. Whether or not that fear is rational, the fear of losing racial identity, culture, position, and place is real for some people. And I think we have to be willing to acknowledge that fear if we are ever going to understand what keeps us behind the color line.

There can also be a fear of losing positions in society. When for centuries your ancestors have ruled and reigned, and now the world is welcoming a more diverse population into positions of power, there can be a fear of losing position and place. I also see a fear of losing culture and heritage. In the classical education movement, this passion to preserve the WEST and American ideals can sometimes fight against the stories of people of color who have a different narrative. So when we share our stories, it can feel like disrespect toward or an attack on a culture and heritage that has held tremendous power for centuries. The fear of being erased, in every aspect, is a very real fear.

In my research, I saw that erasure can happen in the other direction too. Soon after Black Lives Matter and anti-racism began to rise, some schools began removing or minimizing Eurocentric history. Instead of seeking to teach history in a way where the weaving together of all of our stories could be seen, there were places where canceling anything from the West began to happen. As someone who has experienced her human story being erased since I was born, and whose ancestors experienced it long before I was born, I empathize with this fear. No one wants to be erased. Erasure is not the answer for ending racism. In fact, in our efforts to “UNerase” Black history, we can sometimes erase not just White people, but every other ethnicity as well.

So how do we address all of our greatest fears? I only see the answer in Jesus. I know someone reading this may not be a Christian, but even if you can simply be inspired by the story of His love, I believe it could help. Jesus did not erase anyone. When God started the early church, He made sure no ethnicity was left behind. When we truly see one another as made in the image of God, wouldn’t we value one another’s stories, even when those stories are different from our own? If we truly hold the love of God in our hearts, can’t we love those who have hurt us in the past as Jesus loved the very ones who nailed Him to the cross?

If we have the humility of Christ in our hearts, then can’t we wash one another’s feet, even though some of us used to be the ones sitting in the chair while someone else washed our feet, nursed our babies, and picked our cotton? If Jesus equalized humanity by saying, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last,” then can’t we let go of our fear of losing position and place and welcome all of humanity to succeed, no matter what color their skin is? It seems like we all need to shed something. We need to lay our greatest fears at the foot of the cross and take up the unconditional, humble, and gracious love of God for every human being, no matter what their story is.

We also have to lay down the fear of our identity being erased. Scripture reminds us that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. That does not mean our human stories do not matter. It means those differences no longer determine our value, our position before God, or whether we belong in His family. God does not see us through the divisive lens of race or human difference that we have created. To Him, we are equally His children, made in His image, people He loves and for whom He gave His life. We have to learn to see ourselves and one another the same way.

For those of us who are Christian, we must remember that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” The first thing I see in that verse is LOVE. We must love one another. God’s Word also says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” As equal children of God, we are part of the family of God. God has called us into friendship and fellowship in Him. When He started the early church, He called His people into KOINONIA, laying down the things that once separated them, whether Pharisee or Gentile, and following Christ by living in fellowship and community with one another. If we are not willing to lay down our fears, including our fear of being hurt, our fear of losing position, and our fear of being erased, to follow that example, then we are not living out the blueprint for Christianity that God intended.